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Camaro doesn't fit in NASCAR, GM racing boss says

August 3, 2009

Don't look for the Chevy Camaro in NASCAR, except as a pace car.

As we've reported previously, Dodge and Ford will race the Challenger and Mustang, respectively, in the NASCAR Nationwide Series next year, as the series transitions to the "Car of Tomorrow" platform. And as we have also reported, Chevrolet will not race the Camaro, opting to continue with the Impala. We asked Mark Kent, head of General Motors racing programs, why.

"We've looked at racing the Camaro, and one thing we do not want to do is to force the car where it shouldn't be," Kent said. "We looked at NASCAR, for example--took a very hard look at running the Camaro in the Nationwide series. That was a request made of us by NASCAR, and we have had a tremendous partnership with NASCAR, so we took a very hard look at it.

"At the end of the day, because of the quest for very close competition and the need to have templated bodies in that series, we felt that by forcing the Camaro into the Nationwide templates that we were compromising the body lines of an iconic car. So at the end of the day we just could not get the Camaro in the Nationwide series to satisfy our requirements.

"We are looking at [entering the Camaro] in other series, the KONI Challenge series, for example, where the body is production--that's a slam dunk. In drag racing, in stock and superstock, we look forward to seeing it on the NHRA circuit. But other than that, we really don't see any need to continue to push the Camaro into the motorsports arena. There are other areas for us to promote the Camaro. We need to find ways to spread our marketing dollars around the Camaro, and expand the customer base beyond the mere motorsports enthusiast."